There does not seem to be a forum on Black Studies or Black Americana?

'Black Europe' – a 44-CD Boxed
Set (LP-Size) with two 300-page hardcover books, a total of 1,244 tracks. Total
playing time approx. 56 hrs and 30 mns.
Now, after several years in the making, the set will
finally be available to the public in October.

The edition will be strictly limited to 500 copies,
worldwide.
All orders received prior to August 1, 2013 will get an individually numbered
copy.
Please, note:
Subscription price, valid until December 31, 2013:
€ 499.00 incl. free shipping worldwide
Regular price: € 750.00

What is it about?
Black men and women – long present in Europe – have
been overlooked as pioneering personalities in modern mass media. From the
early years of the recording industry, people of African descent were featured
on European phonograph cylinders, gramophone discs and in movies and still
images. Their music, speech and dance, in all styles, categories, and languages
provide a rich resource.
In more than 100 chapters Black Europe will be documenting and chronicling
evidence of some 2,000 recordings and 200 films.

This scattered and almost
forgotten treasury runs from the 1880s to the late 1920s and the invention of
the microphone. Rare originals have been lovingly restored using modern
technology.
Black Europe includes biographies of hundreds of individuals –
politicians, performers, actors and entertainers - from the United States,
Africa, the Caribbean and Europe who were active in Europe. Their biographies
are illustrated with a treasure trove of documents, official photos and family
pictures, as well as contemporary sheet music, concert posters and promotional
flyers and postcards.

The majority of the rare sound recordings included with
the book are made available for the first time in a modern format, and will
provide fresh insights into black entertainment, the prehistory of jazz, the
colonial era, and African languages and cultures. Original recording sheets and
hundreds of pictures showing cylinders and gramophone record labels illustrate
the beginnings of the 20th century record business.

The vast majority of the sound recordings in this set is made available for the first time.

From African-Americans comes an aural kaleidoscope of entertainers and music from the last days of minstrelsy through ragtime and music hall artists to string bands, spirituals, and the early days of jazz in Europe, including the earliest examples of stride piano and rhythm scat singing, and some of the first records made anywhere of African-American folk music practices. Historians of jazz and blues have for the first time the opportunity to hear the complete output of the African-American string bands which recorded in London in the teens, the pioneering multi-racial recordings of Vorzanger’s Band and the Queens’ Dance Orchestra, and the complete Paris recordings of Mitchell’s Jazz Kings.

From Africans come ethnological and commercial recordings of African languages and folk tales, religious music on both African and European models, and recordings of the popular music of the 1920s. Also documented is the involvement of those born in Europe of African descent in the wider culture of the African diaspora. Each track is profusely documented in the discographical data that comes with each chapter.